Female gymnastics team makes history

Female gymnastics team makes history

Victoria Moors is the ultimate team player. Competing despite two painful micro-tears in one of her back muscles, the 15-year-old Cambridge gymnast helped her Canadian team make history at the Olympic Games in London, England on Sunday. The fearsome five comprised of Moors, Ellie Black, Dominique Pegg, Brittany Rogers and Kristina Vaculik finished sixth overall in the preliminaries to become the first Canadian gymnastics team to qualify a team in a non-boycotted Olympics.

The last time a Canadian team qualified was in 1984, when the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries boycotted the Los Angeles Games due to the Cold War.

Though Moors was considered a favourite to make it to event finals in floor – her best event – and possibly move into all-around finals, her injury forced coaches to juggle plans and put her in only three events.

“They didn’t want to risk injuring me for the final. They wanted to save my back,” said Moors, who admitted she was disappointed that the team scaled back plans for her. “But we still had a good outcome and that’s what’s important. They didn’t want to put myself and the team at risk.”

Moors understood the decision was best for her, as well as the team. And she took it all in stride.

“It’s really not meant for a young athlete to make a final,” she said, showing a surprising maturity for the youngest competitor at the Games.

“Usually in the Olympics, they focus more on the older, mature athlete who’s been through more throughout their life. I don’t want to say we’re in the background when you do your routines, but they have the experience and difficulty comes with age. I’m just happy to be out here competing with all of them.”

The fact that she’s competing at all is a bonus. She insists she’ll be ready to go Tuesday and wants to improve on her scores. Her 14.100 in floor, her strongest event, couldn’t get her into the finals, but she has scored higher when healthy.

She’ll also compete in bars, where she set a new personal best score since turning senior.

Beam has been dropped from the agenda.

Moors said she was nervous to the point of crying prior to competing, but that’s all behind her now.

“There’s definitely going to be nerves, but I’m going to have more of an understanding of what’s going on throughout the competition.”

Though she’s had a day to absorb what happened, Moors still has the same giddiness that the rest of Canada saw on TV when the girls’ reaction was shown after making it to the finals.

“We’re so excited to compete in the final tomorrow. No team has done this before. We’re so excited and so proud of ourselves,” she said.